The recto of this scholarly tablet carries five and a half lines of hieratic text written in black ink and annotated with punctuation marks in red ink. It sums up the ideal of behaviour which must inspire a young scribe keen to make his way in life. A silhouette of the sacred ibis,Thoth, patron of writing and of scribes, is engraved three times, but in a rather imperceptible manner, on the surface of the limestone.
L. Speleers, Recueil des inscriptions égyptiennes des Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire à Bruxelles, Bruxelles 1923, 55 nº 233
J.-Ch. Balty, e.a., Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, Brussel, Oudheid - Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Bruxelles, Antiquité - The Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, Antiquity, Bruxelles 1988, 24
M.R. et J.J. Janssen, Growing up in Ancient Egypt, Londres 1990, viii, 77, fig. 30
B. van de Walle, in Schrijfkunst uit het Oude Egypte - Écritures de l'Égypte ancienne, Bruxelles 1992, 40-41
E. Strouhal, Life in Ancient Egypt, Cambridge 1992, 266 n° 289
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